Political bubbles may foster the moralization of attitudes on polarized issues—that is, create a subjective connection between individuals’ attitudes (e.g., pro-refugee) and their core values. However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms—which could be rooted in the dynamic social interactions occurring within those bubbles. We examined those mechanisms by using a unique methodology focusing on small group conversations ( N = 142; n = 46 groups) about controversial outgroup statements (concerning refugees). Multilevel analyses distinguished individual-level from group-level processes. Supporting pre-registered hypotheses, results show that moral emotions exerted a contextual effect on moralization: individuals in groups with stronger emotional responses moralized the issue more strongly, independent of their own emotional responses. Moreover, group-level moral emotions mediated the association between group-level perceived attitude strength and individual moralization. In contrast, pre-discussion attitude strength did not show comparable contextual effects. These findings suggest that moralization can be shaped by emergent emotional norms during group discussions.
D’Amore et al. (2026) studied this question.